Bomb found at home of boy, 14

Teen arrested after telling Reservoir High staff member about pipe device

Fulton

A 14-year-old Fulton boy was arrested after he told a Reservoir High School staff member that he had a pipe bomb, police and school officials said yesterday.

The teen, who was arrested after school at his home Wednesday, did not threaten to use the pipe bomb at the school or against students, police and school officials said.

Working with the state fire marshal and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Howard County police searched the boy's home and recovered the pipe bomb Wednesday afternoon, police said. Police did not say where the bomb was found in the home and declined to release details about the explosive device.

Police did not identify the youth because he is a juvenile. He was charged with manufacturing and possessing an explosive device, and he was released to his parents a couple of hours after the arrest, said Cpl. Lisa Myers, a Howard police spokeswoman.

Adrianne Kaufman, the school's principal, said the incident was not school-related and that the student would not face disciplinary action.

"The student gave us no indication that the bomb was to be used at school or toward any students at school," Kaufman said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Kaufman said the student mentioned the pipe bomb during the course of a "much greater conversation" that he had initiated with a member of the student services staff. She declined to disclose further details of the conversation, noting the student's requirement for confidentiality.

"We did our part in letting the school resource officer know," Kaufman said. "At that point, it became a police matter."

The Howard Police Department has one officer assigned to each high school in the county. Last month, a school resource officer at Hammond High School was involved in an investigation that led to the arrests of five students accused of planning to buy and sell a handgun. The officer and school officials found the gun inside a student's locker on campus.

Myers, the police spokeswoman, said the pipe bomb discovery was a "rare" incident in Howard and that she could not recall the last time one had been found in connection with a juvenile.

W. Faron Taylor, deputy state fire marshal, did not have specific statistics, but he said in a telephone interview that a "large portion" of the roughly 400 calls a year to the bomb squad are related to incidents involving juveniles.